Apple's famously female digital voice assistant will soon come with a male option, as Apple readies its own Siri-powered virtual butler to go head-to-head-to-head with Amazon's Echo and Google Home.

But Siri isn't just being spruced up for the big new product launch. It will also be paying more attention to what you do on your iPhone.

Apple says it wants its digital assistant to be more helpful in navigating your digital life. It says it will learn your habits based on what articles you might be reading, for instance. Or if someone texts you about owing money, it will ask if you want to pay from your Apple Pay account.

Apple didn't discuss the privacy implications, though typically, the machine processing takes place on the device itself, rather than over the Internet. That's a contrast to Google's approach. Apple's approach protects privacy, but might make the service less useful when switching devices.

The Siri updates are expected in September with iOS 11, the next version of Apple's mobile

Other features coming to iPhones and iPads include messages syncing in the cloud. Only the most recent messages will be kept on the device to save storage.

For photos, Apple is turning to a "high efficiency" format to replace JPEGs. Although the format is not exclusive to Apple, it's not yet clear how well the photos will work with non-Apple software and devices, which mostly use JPEG.

Apple is also bringing the ability to pay back a friend or other individual through its payment service, Apple Pay. Before, transactions had been limited to products and services from businesses and institutions.

The free software update for mobile devices, iOS 11, is expected in September when Apple typically releases new iPhones.

All of these new features were announced at Apple's annual conference for software programmers on Monday.